In the mid ’90s, while many of his classmates courted deals with tech giants, Paul Maya pursued another route. He relished his major in Information and Decision Systems, but he was also fascinated with how the arts and the Web intersect. In fact, he almost left his studies at Carnegie Mellon to take a shot at film school. Instead, he started a film club and filled the time between classes making documentaries with other movie buffs on campus.
When he graduated in 1994, he took a job working for a company, Times Mirror Multimedia, which made children-content CD-ROMs. The gig allowed him to be creative. Although he liked his job well enough, the business landscape was ripe for dot-com start-ups. In 1995, Maya took the plunge and launched Toggle Entertainment, which created interactive cartoons for film promotions. Maya served as president and technologist.
He and his team captured the attention of major movie houses. Soon, their roster of projects included helping to market movies like Mulan and Austin Powers. “I always wanted one foot in media and the other foot in tech,” says Maya. The company thrived until 2001, when the tech bubble busted. But his creative bent and understanding of the Web helped him to form a new career path, as vice president of technology at ABC/Disney, CNN, and other major media outlets. Recently, Maya was named global head of Businessweek.com and Bloomberg.com, two of the leading online business publications in the world, where he finds himself responsible for strategic planning, branding, and best practices.
—Lisa Kay Davis (DC’09)
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Paul Maya joins Bloomberg
